December 2024: Blog posts and books
I visit my parents for Christmas, and I woke up early this morning to return home. I drove in the early morning dusk – the sort of light my mum’s side of the family would call “dimpsy” – and it was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve done. The roads were quiet, all around me were thick and grey clouds, and there was a thick stripe of golden orange light where the land meets the sky. It felt like a fitting way to end the year.
I want to write some overall thoughts on 2024 as a whole, but they’re still quite nebulous. One of the last things I do each year is make a nice hot chocolate, sit down and write some reflections on the year as a whole. I look at my diary and my photos and my journal, and reminisce about everything I got up to. (Every year is always busier than I remember.)
I haven’t done those reflections yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
One of the less fun parts of this year was getting a wisdom tooth extracted, which happened at the start of this month. Ow. I have a friendly dentist and I had a textbook recovery, but I can’t recommend the experience.
More fun in December was a “mini tour” of some of my friends. I had some annual leave to use by the end of the year, so I took a bunch of day trips to go and visit friends I haven’t seen in a while. It was wonderful, and I want to do more of it in 2025.
Closer to home, I’ve been migrating more of my saved media to static websites. I’ve replaced a Plex server with a static website for organising my small collection of TV shows, which is quite satisfying. I’ll write more about this in the new year.
What have I been writing?
I published Not all blog posts are created equal earlier this month, which is a meta article about some changes I made to my website to help my writing. I’m really pleased with the changes it describes, and I’m glad to have finished the article – it took about a dozen rounds of editing to get a structure that I liked. This is something that improved dramatically between the first and final draft.
Earlier today I posted My favourite books from 2024, my fourth annual roundup of books I loved reading. Once again I’ve inadvertently gravitated towards books with “heavy” topics like disasters and suicide, but there are some fun ones too.
I also had a spike in views on What year is it?, which I wrote in January 2021 after I found a datetime bug that made me think I was about to relive 2020. Whoever is unfortunate enough to be having the same issue: my sympathies.
Plus I wrote a handful of “today I learned” posts:
What’s making me smile?
🚂 I watch craft and woodworking videos on YouTube whenever I do cross-stitch, and Full Stack Woodworking’s model train in a coffee table is delightful. The train is smaller than your finger!
🤿 I’m loving the second series of Silo (Apple TV+). I’ve read the books it’s based on, but the TV show is different enough to keep me guessing about what’s going to happen. The acting is superb and I watch new episodes first thing every Friday.
📦 The True Crime Edition of the Playdate Podcast is a wild story, and told in an entertaining way. Two pallets of game consoles vanished, and the folks at Panic were determined to get them back!
I hope the festive season has treated you well, and that 2025 kicks off with a bang. Happy New Year!
Speak soon,
~ Alex (they/she)